Burning Time

18

“Great lunch,” Jason said.

“Yeah, it’s great to be together,” Charles agreed.

It was about fifty-five outside, the warmest day in months. Charles and Jason walked along the East River after lunch in Charles’s elegant apartment on East End Avenue.

“Isn’t this great?” Charles demanded. He pointed out to the water where a large sloop sailed between two barges. “Look at that boat. God, I’d love a boat.”

“When would you use it?” Jason laughed. “With the country house and the Caribbean vacations, skiing trips to Vail … Must be tough.”

Charles hunched his shoulders a little at the dig. Charles, who looked like he could be Jason’s brother, came from an extremely wealthy Westchester family. Jason came from the Bronx, had scholarships in college and medical school, and helped support his family all through his training. They met the first day at the New York Psychiatric Center where they did their training, and had been friends ever since.

“I don’t know. I’d find the time. I want to take up sailing. I didn’t sail as a kid. Did you?”

“No,” Jason said. The Bronx didn’t have much of a coastline. And his family’s primary concern had been food and shelter.

“Don’t have kids,” they liked to tell him. “They’ll drain you of your life’s blood and keep you as poor as we are.”

Now they were mad because he was married to a shiksa and were convinced God had made her barren to punish him. Jason had given them no grandchildren; what kind of son was that? They didn’t know he was the ambitious one, the one in the marriage who didn’t want life complicated by children. Until recently, Emma hadn’t seemed to care very much, either. Only recently had the question of enlarging their family become an issue that smoldered away under the surface of their daily life. Now he was beginning to see how much Emma wanted and needed a child.

Charles strode along, breathing deeply. “Isn’t this great? I just can’t stand being in the city on weekends. I feel caged. I really do. I need to be outside.” He swung his arms. “I need exercise.”

“Don’t you run?” Jason asked. Like Emma, Jason liked to run. It was good for the heart, made his body strong, and gave him energy. It was like taking an upper. The view wasn’t much different on Riverside Drive. They had good paths and trees and a river over there, too.

“Oh, yeah, and I go to the gym and play racquetball, but that’s a sprinter’s game. It’s not like standing back at the baseline in tennis and really smashing the ball.”

“No,” Jason said.

“Well, I can’t complain. Brenda had my office redecorated. It’s really nice now. I work a half a day a week at the hospital, to keep my hand in. Go away most weekends.” And there was Rosalie. Charles didn’t mention Rosalie, a colleague he popped from time to time when opportunity presented itself. He didn’t tell Jason things like that anymore. “Life is a well-oiled machine these days. Everything in its place and running smoothly. We’ve got it made. You’re the famous one. I’m the drone.” Charles laughed.

Jason had been putting one foot in front of the other, listening, listening. All afternoon. Listening with empathy was what he was famous for. Now he could contain himself no longer.

“Look, Charles. Something terrible is happening to me,” he blurted out. “I don’t know. I just—I’m falling apart.…” Jason’s steps faltered.

They were just at the bottom of the park, about to head back to Seventy-ninth Street down the broad walk along the river. Charles caught him under the arm. His somewhat vacant, smug expression was instantly wiped away. The intense, searching face that Jason used to know and hadn’t seen in many years reappeared.

It was the face of the young Charles who had come to work on the sixth floor of the Center one morning in their second year to find a beautiful, sixteen-year-old, acutely psychotic patient hanging by the neck on an exposed pipe in the ceiling. All her vital signs were gone, but Charles wouldn’t accept her death. He had never accepted the credo that patients like her couldn’t be treated with psychotherapy, either. He resuscitated her, and treated her for years after his training was completed. The girl recovered and never had another psychotic incident.

Charles caught sight of an unoccupied bench and headed for it with his arm around Jason’s shoulder.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

Jason sat on the bench. “It’s Emma.”

“Is she involved with someone else?” Charles frowned when Jason didn’t reply. “Oh, man, I’m sorry …”

Jason shook his head. “That’s not it.”

“Oh, you’re involved with someone else.” Charles cocked his head. “So, you had an accident. You fell. You can get through it.”

“No, no, Charles, it’s way beyond that. It’s something you could never believe.”

“You did a foursome. What? What could be so bad I couldn’t believe it?”

Jason paused. “Did you see Serpent’s Teeth?”

“No, what are they?” Charles looked confused.

“It’s a movie. Haven’t you seen the ads for it, the reviews?” Jason demanded irritably.

“No, what’s so important about it?”

“Emma’s in it,” Jason said.

“Oh, I see,” Charles replied. “Emma’s in a movie. That’s great.”

“You haven’t heard anything from anybody?” Jason demanded.

“No. I haven’t. What’s the big deal? What’s the matter with it?”

Jason took a deep breath. “It’s a porno film.”

“Jesus.” Charles’s mouth dropped open. “Emma in a porno film?”

“Well, it’s not a porno film. It’s an art film. But she—” Jason sniffed. “She plays the part of a young woman in therapy. With this guy who’s a creep. And there’s no sound in their sessions.”

“Jesus.” Charles shook his head as if he had water in his ears.

“It’s a really disturbing film. It makes therapy look … evil.”

“And there’s—sex in it?”

“Yeah. Emma fucks this hoodlum. She’s—really nude. And she really does it. Well, it looks like it. You don’t see penetration. We’ve seen penetration on the screen.”

They both pushed a little air out of their noses, remembering the sex clinic training, the films for doctors showing sex between all kinds of people—Very fat. Old. People with colostomies. Paraplegics. They had seen a number of films made to teach doctors and staff at hospitals that the desire for love and sex didn’t politely go away when people were old or ill, disfigured or disabled.

“Ahh.” Charles scratched his chin. “I’m stunned.”

“Yeah. Well, so was I.”

“She didn’t tell you about it?”

“No, she didn’t tell me. I don’t know what happened. I don’t understand how she could do it. I just don’t understand. If I could understand …” He shook his head again. “It’s a horrible thing to see your wife … I’m a doctor.”

“It’s upsetting.” Charles sat there with his mouth open. “But it’s—just a film. It’s not all bad. You can find your way together.” He murmured consoling words, hardly knowing what he was saying. He heard terrible, distressing things from his patients all the time, but personally he lived in a world where cheating a little on one’s spouse was about as bad as a person could get.

“But it is so bad. She got great reviews. This horrid film where this poor girl ends up getting herself tattooed—”

“She’s tattooed? Jesus,” Charles interrupted.

“That’s how it ends.”

“Jesus, is she really tattooed?”

“Of course not, it’s a movie.”

“Jason, this is amazing.”

“Yeah, well, it’s taken over our lives. She’s being pursued by these big-shot agents. She’s got movie offers.”

“Jesus,” Charles said a fifth time.

“She’s fucked her way into the big time, Charles, and I’m just—” Jason turned away.

“Afraid you’re going to lose her? Of course you are, but you know you love each other.”

“Oh, man, if she could do this, I lost her a long time ago.” Jason covered his face with his hands.

Charles put his arm around him again. “God, this is—I don’t know what to say.”

“And the worst thing is nothing will stop her. Not the letters. Not anything—” Jason stopped.

“What letters?”

“Ah, well, it’s not your problem. Forget it.”

“Come on, Jason, look at me. We’ve been through a lot together. What letters? Maybe I can help.”

“Not this time, old buddy.” Abruptly, Jason stood up. “Come on. We’ve left the girls alone together long enough.”